My short story, A Place with No One, Part III The water, dripping from my hair on my feet and floor, formed into tiny water pools. My feet looked like the feet of a giant’s. I did my internship in the hospital for a year back to China. In the last month of my internship, he was the patience of ward No.11. He had traumatic brain injury from a car accident. He couldn’t move or speak. I was afraid of him. He always followed every of my movements by his eyes. You knew he could understand you. You saw it from his eyes. Losing one’s ability to talk and move was unspeakably horrifying to me. It was like a living soul trapped in a dead body. How could he get connected to the other people? The only connection was his private and sealed-in awareness. Even with language, expressions and other things, how tight the connection could be? His younger brother would push him around in a wheel chair, sometimes just left him on the porch. He lounged, basking in the sun. When I walked by, he would follow me with the same staring, no expressions, no feelings, as if his heart was a place with no one. After five days, Leon called. We never mentioned our last conversation. He spent the weekends in Bordeaux with a friend. The weather was chilly and damp, no better than it in Paris. He asked about my work. I told him the child with femur fracture could get off the bed now, and the others were all in a slow recovery. I told him I had a dream. In the dream, I became a raven at last. He laughed. He said he couldn’t believe it had only been three weeks since he left and he missed me. I told him I missed him too. Out of the window, a black bird perched on a wire, combing feathers on its wing. It looked similar to the one I became of. Five to ten a.m. I got off the car. Mrs. Brown answered the door immediately. “I forgot to call you. Sorry dear that I made you come all your way down.” She seemed to be waiting for me to get in. I didn’t move. I was ready for the bad news. “Mr. Brown had a fever again. They sent him to the intense-care unit in St. Martin’s. They said he might not be able to make it this time. ” I didn’t know what to say. Like many cases, Mr. Brown was deteriorated irresistibly by the frequent infections till his last days. I felt really sorry. Mrs. Brown put his hand on my arm. “I know. I am ready for this long time ago. I thought he wouldn’t make it when he got pneumonia. And after it he became like that, all feeble and barely awake. It was wearing for me too to keep the hopes up.

My short story, A Place with No One, Part II The daylight was too dim in this room at ten o’clock in the morning. I hold Mr. Brown’s fine wrist and his dry and cold fingers, feeling that outside the room, there was only vacancy. The world faded away and left the square room in the void, as a mindless determined existence. When I was back in the car, it was ten fifty. For Thursday, only Mr. Brown one client, so my work was done. I drove to the supermarket and bought cabbage and milk. When I don’t know what to buy, I buy cabbage and milk. Speaking of where I live, the white apartment on 14th floor, since there is no other features. All my furniture were in white, which I had few, as well as miscellanies. Before leaving China, I told people that I wasn’t planning to live in Minnesota forever. After 2 years in Minneapolis I still tell the same. “If your social identity and driving license are not counterfeited, I would think you are a spy or a criminal. Because you can get packed in less than half an hour. ” Leon always made fun of me on that. Leon was back to France for his summer vacation. He complained about the bad weather in Paris everyday. He has not graduated yet and has been working as an intern in a fashion studio. He is 2 years younger than me. Maybe after 2 years, he wouldn’t mind that much about the weather at all. I am willing to exchange good weather for the chance to go to Paris. We have dated for about a year. We were good at the beginning but only at the beginning. Now we just couldn’t find a reason to break up. I put cabbage and milk into fridge, which was nearly empty except a jar of beetroots. Then I decided to take a shower. I dried my hair before the window. On the top of the roof of building across the road, some one built a green house. The plants were hanging down from the shelves. The door was not closed completely, reflecting the dazzling sunlight. I closed my eyes. The back of my eyelids was green. Sometimes I think things around me might change if I keep my eyes shut, but I can not know. When I open my eyes, everything would change back like a conspiracy. Leon didn’t call for 2 days. The last conversation was he asked me how I felt about our relationship, happy or bored. I told him there were happy moments as well as boring ones, and those would add up to a deeper relationship or lead to nothing. Now I suddenly noticed how fragile the link between Leon and me. If I change the phone number, we will just get lost in two different places in the world.

My short story, A Place with No One, Part I (only because of words limit) I write for fun. Usually fragments, sometimes uncompleted stories, seldom, completed ones. But all in Chinese. I only write my diary in English. Shush. This is a completed story, And, it is in English. The most adventuresome part is, I know I am kinda of good at writing Chinese, to be a bit cocky, I got published once, but I would never know if I can possibly write English. Here is my story. A Place with No One I pulled the car by the side of the road and checked my hair in the rearview mirror. It was seven to ten o’clock in the morning. I rang the doorbell. Hearing the footstep behind the door, I hold my breath, as if waiting something unknown to fall on me. “Oh you are here. Come on in. I just fed him breakfast before he fell asleep again. He is awake now.” Mrs. Brown inched back. I stepped in, nodding at her direction, passed the long corridor. My shoes were silent on the hardwood floor. It was too warm in the room. The air mixed with smells of fabrics and sickness. I can’t describe the smell of sickness. If a person stays in bed in a room for a long time, there will be this kind of smell. Every room like this smells differently, but you would know right away. Mr. Brown reclined on his pillows, as usual, with eyes close and slightly open mouth. I kept nearer and told him today’s rehabilitation therapy starts. His pink tongue nestled between his bare gums, like an infant’s. I put my fingers on his wrist, watching his chest up and down to count his pulse and breathing rate. He laid his eyes on me for a second and closed them again. There wasn’t much difference between being awake or asleep of him. He had been in bed for a year after the cerebral hemorrhage. The pneumonia two months ago put him in this endless drowsiness. I did the rehabilitation therapy by moving his joints gently. For his age and condition, the aim of therapy is only to prevent the joints from being too stiff and the formation of venous thrombus in his legs. During the therapy, I kept my eyes on his expressionless face from time to time to make sure he was not in pain. But I actually didn’t know whether he would have any expression at all. His still face was like a mask. All the vitality of him condensed into the hear beats. So his body could run like a machine while the consciousness gave way to the silent and numb metabolism. To be continued;)

Is it appropriate to start a sentence with " Me, myself "? Is it appropriate to start a sentence with " Me, myself "? Like "Me, myself also made the same mistake".

Just ramble I was talking with my friends about how the mainstream brainwashes people to believe in the value of things like fashion, so the desire of possession can drive people to work their asses off to accomplish nothing but spur the marketing. Even we know it is a trap, we still fall into it. Because it is impossible to get out of the group consciousness, which established even when everyone wants to be special. Then we accidently saw the second part of TV series of Black Mirror. It really was the best fictional way to say this.

Three authors I love I used to keep the records of every book I had read ever since I saw a movie in which the main character will get his hairs cut only after he has read 100 books. It took me much more time than I thought to surpass this number. If I was bald at the beginning, I could have my hairs braided at the end. There are more than three authers I love, but I am only going to name Kurt Vonnegut, J.D.Salinger, Lin Yutang, and no reason why three not four. They are incomparable to each other because they are good in different way. Kurt Vonnegut arranges words as well as plots in a remarkably creative way.And he is a big fan of philosophy. J.D.Salinger was an insightful observer of human beings. Lin Yutang was a wise man and he also wrote about philosophy. But tastes are changing. I don't know which three I will list five years later. I wanted to be a 30-year old in junior high for reading too much Murakami Haruki, and wanted to die for Milan Kundera or had a fling with Henry Miller.

What's the difference between these words? They all appear on my GRE vocabulary book. I hope I won't use these words at all but still want to know the difference between them: abhorrence, detestation, hatrede, abomination, animosity, antipathy, aversion.

Soysauce and butter?! When I got too lazy for slow cooking, I will let rice cooker to take care of the whole meal. Rice cooker as to rice, is like oven as to bread in a logical way:D In China rice cooker is so practical that it can be used to make even chiffon cake, which I surely won't try. I used it to make mushrooms-mixed-in rice. I don't know how to name it. Fungi rice? haha..I got the recipe from Japanese website and made a twist. I put rice/different kinds of mushrooms/tuna flakes/sake(rice wine)/soysauce/water in the rice cooker and pushed the button. When it was done, I cut in a small chunk of butter, also some dried parsley and gave it a stir when the rice was still pretty hot. It turned out really good~ One of my friends told me that in Japan people put only soysauce, butter and cooked rice together to make a meal.. Do I dare to try? ><'

When I am in the water I used to be a professional swimmer. Back then I was not able to enjoy swimming at all. It becomes totally different after I was "retired". I go swimming only for fun now. When I am in the water, I feel like I am floating on a huge chunk of jello. I like to float on my back thinking how tiny I am in the pool, how tiny the pool is in the city..how the earth is just a dot. I like to see the shadow of my arms on the tiles or imagine I am a torpedo. I love the broken sunlight through the water. I don't even mind the feeling when water gets into your nose which my friend described as brain-burning. Although I do mind drink it. My dream is to swim in a mirror-like lake deep in the woods and a cabin with fireplace waiting on the bank.